Différer la décomposition : le temps suspendu ?

Abstract

Whatever mummification processes can be, natural or artificial, the aim of such a practice is usually to prevent a corpse to become skeletonized, and more generally to lessen the deterioration of the body which is to be buried. It is a peculiar step of some mortuary procedures (chaînes opératoires) as if time were suspended, and resulting in a pause within the funerary schedule similar to what is induced by practices of temporary burial. Decay, however, begins again when the body is eventually laid down into its final burial, or when the preservative conditions are changed (frost, desiccative weather, etc.). This is why archaeologists should be able to identify such a previous mummification process, even when the body has become entirely skeletonized. From various archaeological or climatic contexts, the cases discussed in this paper (frozen bodies from the Altaï looted kourgans; bodies exposed and manipulated at Dzharkutan, Uzbekistan; mummification through desiccation among the ancient Islanders from Marquesas, French Polynesia) show that the key evidence for the diagnosis of mummification is given by the in situ analysis of the connections and dislocations of the joints of each skeleton. The disarticulation of some enduring or stable joints together with the connection of some least enduring ones (as far as decay of the joints is concerned) is an association which represents a dislocation of the joints in a « paradoxical order ». The inversion of the regular chronology of the decay of the joints in a human corpse is a sure evidence for the identification of a previous mummification process.

Keywords

• burial
• Central Asia
• decay
• Marquesas Islands.
• mummification